Automatic chicken door

[gjoyner]

Hi, i need advice on an automatic chicken door. After about a year I'm plum sick of gettng up early and opening the chicken door and closing it at night. What and how can I get or make a cheaply priced chicken door?
any ideas?
thanks!

 

[Happy Chooks]

Mine's not cheap, but it works great and it's well worth the money. I have the inside install with the light sensor.
http://www.foyspigeonsupplies.com/catalog/2100-2107.html

 

[Heathercp]

Edited to fix links.

We just made the one with the drapery motor and I love it! We bought the drapery motor online - with shipping I think it was around $90 (after much searching, I finally found the place we bought it from http://www.discounthomeautomation.c...oduct_id=4897&session_id=0,0&search_id=522881 ), but the investment was worth it to me. Would you pay someone $1 a day to get up and let the chooks out for you? Yes? Then it's paid for itself in 3 months. That's how I look at it anyway.

Here's a link for the directions that we used. http://www.buildeazy.com/photo-chicken-coop-beatarticle.html It really was a piece of cake. Just mount on the wall, run the rope around the pulley type thingy (isn't that the technical term??), attach one end of the rope to the door and one to a counterweight (we used a brass hose connector - male and female snapped together weighs in at about 100g). Presto. You've got yourself a door opener. We sprung for a pricey timer http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001KBZUMG/ref=oss_product so that we could have one that would adjust itself as the days got longer and shorter. This one was $23, but if you're not quite as scatterbrained as I am, any old timer will do. Using the timer we bought, I've set it up to open at dawn and close at 9pm. It's dark here by 7, so I'm hoping all the stragglers will be resting peacefully by 9 for those evenings when I'm not home to do a headcount. If the timer had a "dusk plus..." function, it would have been perfect. I'd never have to reset it. This way I won't have to reset it all that often.

We don't even have our chickens yet - this weekend is D-Day - but I'm already psyched about the door. I couldn't stop playing with it after we put it together. Open Closed Open Closed - cat in - cat out - cat in - cat out... you get the picture.

Edited to fix links.

 

[owler]

I have a question for those of you with these doors. It looks like a raccoon would be able to push the door up to get in. Is there something to prevent this or is there a weight on the door?

 

[teach1rusl]

Quote:
We (meaning DH...lol) built ours with the drapery motor too, which made it a lot cheaper. Our door is a slide one (in a channel), so it cannot be pushed in. The bottom also recesses down into a bottom channel, so an animal couldn't get a grip on it (alhtough our run is covered and secure, so the likelyhood of an animal getting even having access to the pop door is slim at best). I'll post a pic of our after I go tend the girls. It is wonderful being able to go out there at your leisure to clean up and such...

I would go with a digital timer, so that you can program the off time a minute or so later, rather than the 15 minute or so increments of many appliance timers.

 

[Duke of Orpington]

Quote:
Loved your response but your links all go to a site called "yourlinkgoeshere". You will need to go back and correct them in your original post. The link goes in place of 'YouLinkGoesHere' in between the brackets.

Ron

 

[Heathercp]

Thanks for pointing that out, Ron. I'll have to go back and check my other posts to make sure I didn't make the same mistake on all of them.

Our door looks just like the picture posted by teach1rusl. I don't think a raccoon could push it up, but with raccoons, anything is possible. Our pop door opens into a run that we've tried to make "raccoon proof". But those buggers work in teams and for all I know they might even bring their power tools with them when looking for a midnight snack.

 

[Happy Chooks]

Mine is a guillotine style with bars on each side on the inside. It slides up and down but cannot be pushed in. It's also a metal door. And it lowers below the opening, so no racoon fingers can pry it up.

 

[gsim]

Quote:

 

[The Sheriff]

I have this one and love it! http://web.mac.com/lmorris4/iWeb/Site%207/Automatic%20Chicken%20Door.html

It requires electricity.